Spy Hunt, 1954
Rogin, Michael P.
Spy Hunt, 1954 Enough Rope, by Arthur V. Wat-kins. University of Utah Press and Prentice-Hall. 302 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by Michael P. Rogin We have been buried in academic over-analyses of the...
...General Zwicker: For stealing the fifty dollars...
...But McCarthy's career was a failure, even at comedy, and he died in obscurity...
...He didn't steal it yet...
...The central issue in American politics in 1954 was who promoted Irving Peress, the dentist, from captain to major in the U.S...
...General Zwicker: Either tried or exonerated...
...Did you not think that was more serious than the theft of fifty dollars...
...f McCarthy, as chairman of his own Senate committee, interrogates Brigadier General Ralph Zwicker, commander at Camp Kilmer: McCarthy: Let's go over that...
...This is America...
...General Zwicker: That is correct...
...It is best to let these gleanings from the hearings and other sources tell their own story of the times: f Senator McCarthy (to Senator Watkins) : I find that you and I do agree that someone was culpable, that someone was at fault for keeping a Communist in the military while we are spending billions of dollars trying to fight Communists...
...The deadliness of the Communist way of operating is shown by the fact that they have skillfully shifted the leadership of the campaign into the hands of highly respected American anti-Communists...
...Here, in its innocence, is the best book yet to appear on McCarthy...
...Army...
...this is the way it was...
...A devout Mormon, the former Utah Senator believes the American Constitution is divinely inspired...
...The Chairman [McCarthy]: We have a list of thirty names, an unusual list...
...Can't you hear the laughter around the country, bringing the Cold War, the two-party system, and the military establishment all tumbling down...
...These books, with their theories and abstractions, do not get near the actual experience of that time...
...It is part of a sequence of events...
...Therefore, I will ask you, question number one: Do you know who was, as you say, culpable...
...Could you even consider Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin in the same class...
...General Zwicker: That is correct...
...f Senator Barry Goldwater : "We know that this censure move is not a disconnected happening either in the career of Senator McCarthy or in America's fight against Communism...
...Accordingly, the inference which has been made repeatedly during the past several months that the actions provide tangible evidence of 'coddling of Communists' by the Army is completely false...
...Half of his book, Enough Rope, is simply excerpts from various committee hearings, Congressional debates, and executive documents...
...Reviewed by Michael P. Rogin We have been buried in academic over-analyses of the Joseph R. McCarthy years, including my own analysis (McCarthy and the Intellectuals...
...He was a man born before his time...
...Communist-coddling, secret masters, dentist Irving Peress, forty-eight errors, and always a list to wave at the gullible...
...Who gave him an honorable discharge after he was accused of being a Communist...
...Senator Watkins' summary of the final investigation of the McCarthy Subcommittee on Investigations: "The Committee said nothing about the phase of the case in which the public was so deeply interested, whether there might be a 'Secret Master' in the Army who protected Fifth Amendment Communists," but "listed forty-eight errors in the handling of the Peress case...
...We are looking for the man, the secret master, if you could call him that, who is being protected...
...McCarthy: You did learn, did you not, from the newspaper reports that this man was part of the Communist conspiracy, or at least that there was strong evidence that he was...
...Actually, those unknown engineers of censure hope that this will be the culminating act in the merciless fight to destroy a United States Senator and the fight against Communism...
...This was necessary because a name had been erroneously included in the first compilation...
...You did say if you found out he stole fifty dollars the night before, he would not have gotten an honorable discharge the next morning...
...The fifty dollar case, that he had stolen the night before, he has not been tried for that...
...Several days before he was named chairman of the committee which recommended the censure of Senator McCarthy, he had a dream foretelling his appointment...
...How come the country never got the joke...
...Try to imagine reading such documents, knowing nothing about McCarthy...
...Jenkins in an envelope marked 'confidential' the names of the individuals who had something to do with the Peress personnel actions...
...I submitted to Mr...
...It lists the people in headquarters of the First Army, the office of the Surgeon General, all the doctors in the Surgeon General's office who might have given this man a physical examination, when he was promoted, the officers in the Adjutant General's office, again when he was appointed to the grade of major all of the doctors who were in the Surgeon General's office, and on down the line...
...Could you conclude he was anything but the most brilliant master of black comedy the country had ever seen...
...f Best of all, the Army, represented by Secretary Robert T. Stevens: "Further reference is made to the sealed envelope marked 'Confidential' containing the names of Army personnel who, in the course of their duties, took some type of administrative action with respect to the disposition of Major Peress...
...Subsequently, on June 18, 1954, Lieutenant Murray, of my office, delivered to you an additional envelope marked 'Confidential' to replace the first one...
...KA letter writer from Queens, Irving Peress' home, asked: "Will Major Peress be the next person to investigate Senator McCarthy?—and by the way, who promoted the Major anyhow...
...The Army's reponse to McCarthy's "list" was its statement, released November 3, 1954: "The Department of the Army announced today that exhaustive investigations have conclusively established that there was no collusion, conspiracy, or preferential treatment with respect to any of its actions in the case of Doctor Irving R. Peress...
...Arthur Wat-kins is American gothic: honest, admirable, humorless, rather simple...
...General Zwicker: He has never been tried for that, sir, and there was evidence, Mr...
...Chairman— McCarthy: Don't you give me double talk...
...The evidence shows clearly that it was the system which was at fault...
...McCarthy: You would hold up the discharge until he was tried or exonerated...
...McCarthy: Would you wait until he was tried for stealing the fifty dollars before you prevented his honorable discharge...
...Read them as if for the first time...
...McCarthy: Could you tell us, General, why fifty dollars is so much more important to you than being part of the conspiracy to destroy a nation which you are sworn to defend...
Vol. 34 • March 1970 • No. 3
